Osaka -> Tokyo.

On the last day of our stay in Osaka we decided to go to the famous Osaka castle.

The owner of the apartment very kindly let us to check out any time we want so we can manage a visit to Osaka castle and head to Tokyo after noon.

We took a train to the nearest stop to Osaka castle and walked. A bit far tbh. When we got to the park we decided to just take a buggy because we don't wish to waste a lot of time. Also the kids were also a bit tired from the walk from the train station.

The outer gate

The magnificent Osaka castle. It was a really really pretty day. Shame that we can't spend a whole day in Osaka city. 

My husband and the kids at the top tower of the castle. 

I really like Osaka castle on how informative it is. I actually am not very familiar with any of Japan history and did thought to read a bit but I gotten lazy. But the museum is still very interesting. Much of the exhibits focused on a particular battle between 2 shoguns so I like that it was specific. But still a whole lot more I didnt know. 

And we only manage Osaka castle. I honestly don't feel like I really even briefly visit Osaka. There is so much more I haven't seen. I like Osaka from the brief time I manage to see here and hope I can come back again to see and experience more. 

After the visit, we took a taxi for a halal food place in Osaka, Naritaya Osaka Minami. 

Ordered the Mazesoba and followed the instructions on the wall!

The fried chicken and fried dumpling which was delicious. 

After eating, we head back to the apartment to get our luggage. Then took a taxi to the train station for our next brief stop. Tokyo. We took the JR train to Tokyo which took 3 hours. I don't know why but I don't feel comfortable in the bullet train. It was hot and I don't feel comfortable and nauseous.

We got to Tokyo around 6pm and it was getting dark so it was good that we took a hotel near the station.

It was a new hotel; the Mimaru Tokyo Ueno Inaricho, had opened just a couple of weeks just in fact. So everything was brand new.

A very comfy hotel with comfy beds and the sofa that is beside the dining table can be changed into a bed so we get 2 more extra beds. Perfect place for family. 

My husband and the kids decided to go out to eat while I stay in because Sharif had a fever.  He got back with chicken and rice from a halal place nearby afterwards.

I have to say this place is quite a nice place to stay in Tokyo. Near a major train station and of course near a lot of attractions too.

USJ in a day

Note: (super late throwback post)

I was excited to go to USJ for this Japan trip, because I can't wait to get to the Harry Potter theme park side.

We went around 9 am, and just manage to get in after the gate opened. We went straight to the Harry Potter fame ride.

Walking to our first ride

Early morning no one is taking a pic of this. Afterwards there will be a long line. 

Hogwarts!

Lining up to our Harry Potter ride. As I lined up as a single rider it was faster for me, less than 10 mins of queuing. 

Some stuffs I seen here while waiting. Those who don't want to go to the ride can also toured the castle as my husband and kids did. It was a very Hogwarts-like. Mostly just to be amazed on the talking portraits. Unfortch it is all in Japanese though so we can't understand a thing. 

So I got into the ride and TBH, it was not my favorite ride. Because it is so jerky that at one time I was seriously thinking that I could puke. So anyone who have motion sickness, maybe should popped in some mint candy just before the ride to lessen the motion sickess effect. 

Aside from the motion sickness, it was quite thrilling, Dementors and flying and whizzing through the castle was exhilarating. The space provided for the ride was really huge so it does went on for quite a time. The graphics are well done too. 

After the ride, I caught up with the rest of the familia and the husband went with one of the kids to the other Harry Potter roller coaster ride. It was a mild ride for kids and we all enjoyed it. 

And of course a trip to the Harry Potter theme park , we have to have the Butterbeer. Taste somewhat like root beer. We can have the options either to buy the mugs together with the drink or just the normal plastic cups. I wanted one of the mug so I chose the less expensive mug.

Taste like root beer tbh, more vanilla-ish

Then we hang around Hogsmeade Village because it was pretty.

Then afterwards we went towards the Jurassic Park-like area.

We didnt ride the Flying Dinosaur even though it looks like fun because the wait is more than an hour, even for single rider. As we didn't bought fast pass we decided on the other water ride. It was an okay-ish queue. 

Bought the kids one of the park minions popcorn holder. At first each of them wants one, but it is crazy expensive and it is just a popcorn holder. And heavy. So we asked them to share. 

Different stalls have different minions, there were Tarzan Minions, Pirate Minions, the usual minions , Mummy Minions and I picked this for them. 

The single rider for this ride was only like for 5 mins, I accompanied a sleeping Sharif and Saif outside while Aziz and his father went on this ride. Saif can't ride this yet. After the father and sone emerged, I went in alone.

I love this ride! It have a cooling mild ride at the beginning, then it become slightly crazy at the end.

For lunch we decided on pizza and sit at this pretty place . But it pissed me off actually that people are like smoking around eating area full of kids. As I was not sure of the smoking policy inside here I malas to make a fuss, but honestly. Use your head lah.

After lunch, it was mostly kiddies ride and it seems like I didn't take a pic because when the kids was in their kiddie ride I put in my IG story. LOL.

But Sharif had fun on his balls pit area and we moved to some other kiddie ride. Even there the queue was long so we took a fast pass for one and the kids manage to got on a kid car ride. They had fun.

We went to the Minion Park and it was PACKED. The minions ride queue was 1 hour and my husband have to take them while I bummed around with Sharif.

The Minion Park was plenty cute but I don't care to shop so I mostly just sit around.


Our last ride was the Spiderman 6D sorta thing. It was FUN! This was maybe my favorite ride. I love the 80-ish cartoon graphic and it was thrilling but do not give me nausea. Always a plus.

After this ride we mostly walked around. As it was near Halloween, a zombie parade started and Aziz was terrified. He was closed to tears. He is absolutely terrified of zombie after he watched Train to Busan. LOL. 

We shopped around in the big gifts shop and bought some clothes for the kids and some usual gift stuffs mostly for ourselves. 

Baba refused to take a picture but only wants to shake hand with Elmo. He is a very polite boy. 

We went back quite late. And was super hungry because we just ate a slice of pizza. We tried to go to a bbq halal place but it closed like half an hour early. Very unrecommended. (if I can remember the name). 

We manage to find a halal ramen shop and ordered ramen for all. Everyone finish their ramen and it was delicious even if the cleanliness is yeuch. 

There we cockroaches crawling at the walls but we were too hungry to care. Our servers and cooks were a couple of young Indonesian ladies and there were nice enough to open late for us to eat. So we 'tutup mata' je la. And hey no food poisoning! LOL. But this was pretty delicious honestly.

We got back and way too tired to care. It was a good day though but I don't think I would be going again. I hate queueing.

Holed up due to a Typhoon in Osaka

On our last day in Kyoto, it was hectic. We got a security message saying typhoon is coming and all public transport will be halted the next day.

People who have to travel via train, mainly us tourists were at a loss. We were planning to go to the Railway Museum in Kyoto on the last day so that plan went out the door. We need to catch a train to Osaka ( and of course all attractions are gonna be closed) we just manage to do that. We were panicking a bit thinking that we can't get ticket but we manage to just barely get the ticket on the last train . Phew.

Got to Osaka, all local trains were halted. So we grabbed a taxi to our apartment.

The view from our apartment. Roads were empty as there were announcement everywhere to stay in own home. 

The above is our apartment. It have more rooms ( I forgot to take pic of the kids room) but tinier than the one in Kyoto. 

It was pretty nice place to stay. Near to train station and many places to eat. We should have stayed longer in retrospect. We dont get to explore much of Osaka even though we were staying in a prime location. 

More so because on the day we arrive is the day of typhoon so it is raining everywhere and most stores are closed. 

We tried to walk around the Dotonbori area but it was mostly empty and closed. It was starting to rain heavily and we are looking for food without avail. 

Did manage to loiter around here and there, there were very few people around. If not for the typhoon this place would be packed so looking at the bright side we got to experience an empty Dotonbori!. The rain had stopped a bit so I manage to get a clear pic. Was happy that I manage to get a pic of this Glico man mostly because this iconic image reminded me of my then love of jdrama.

It was deserted see? Baba was in a bad mood and do not want to be in a pic and Aziz complied to get in the pic. I wished I gotten a closer look at that ferris wheel. 

It was raining heavily again and we were taking a shelter outside a Family Mart while my husband bought some rice and eggs for our dinner to be eaten together with some Brahim curry I bought for emergency. We also bought some fish burger in McDonalds but that was not enough as we had not eaten in a day.

So around 5 pm as advised by the authorities, we just mostly holed up in our apartment and looking out at the window wondering how bad is the typhoon. It feel like a typical rain storm in KL tbh, but the typhoon coming in Osaka was weaker , around Category 2, so it just feel like a rain storm. It did go on all night long though and hoping the USJ will still be opened tomorrow.

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Still on the edge of Trami #osakajapan

A post shared by Shamani Samin (@shammin) on Sep 30, 2018 at 5:26am PDT

New template because it is due

I had been using the last one since I only have 1 child. Now I have 3 and multiple cats. Can't be arsed to make a new header. I hate to buang the old header because any pics of Kurap is precious to me, but I saved it. And my profile pic is still a pic of Kurap looking inquisitively at you, so it will remain.

I like the clean look and also I prefer the dark template although I like the look of a white template even more. I prefer the background of stuffs I am reading about in black I guess. We are getting old. 

But none the wiser still. Maybe a lil bit though. 

Can't get enough of Kyoto

High time to start writing on the Japan trip on end of September. I was hoping for autumn, but of course it was still summer. 

I will just be using whatever photos in the Photos. I don't think so we even bring those big ass camera. We just use camera phone. It is a big sad looking at all those camera shops though that used to be teeming with customers... ( I am straying from the topic as usual).

Anyway because of the Typhoon  we were not sure our flight will not be cancelled. Since we don't like to be anxious about it, husband changed tour flight so that our arrival will be at Narita instead. I bought the JR pass at the last moment at KLCC at the JTB counter. Very easy peasy. Need to bring your passport when buying JR Pass though, nasib baik la KLCC dekat. 

So we took a flight to Tokyo last Sept and then straightaway went to Kyoto via bullet train. It was around 3 hrs time so we reached there around 1pm or 2pm. Contacted the hotel and they were flexible enough to let us check in early. I really love Japan hospitality I have to say. For all our 3 hotels we have no problems in getting early check in.

Our Place of Stay There

So for the hotel, we stayed in hotel apartment Kamo Riverside Kyonoya. It is highly rated in Booking.com and the rating is not exaggerated at all. I love that apartment.

The place is near-ish to 2 train station and it was not an unpleasant walk. I also tried to find a place with a washing machine so that we don't have to carry a lot of suitcases. They provide also a capsule like detergent which smells amazing and the tiny bathroom can be used to dry the clothes. There is a button where it will blast hot air into the room. I was very impressed. We did our laundry at night and in the morning all of the clothes will be dried. Amazing I tell you.

Where did we go in Kyoto? 

On our first day we went to the Fushimi Inari.

We went there near closing time. Closing time for the temple. You can go up the trail at night if you like but I have kids ( this statement seems to imply if no kids I would be getting lost on a hill housing thousands of red pillar shrines in Kyoto at night) . But the trail looks interesting and magical.

Also when I arrived in Japan I was near asthmatic and wheezing because of a darn cold. I almost didnt want to go to Fushimi Inari, but I so wanted to , so a little inhaler helps me. Walked faster than healthy people even.

We climbed the usual routes and the kids rang the bell at the temple up the hill. I like it up there, explored it a bit and came down to explore the area for a little while .

Hard to get a pic with no people on it like here. I have to walk here and there to find a spot where I can take a pic where no one is walking down, like the first pic above. 

Then we came down and there were a few stalls selling delish looking stuffs. I am tempted to buy it all but malas. Just bought 2 slices of pineapple for the kids. It was sweet and they enjoyed it. 

On the second day, we headed further out a bit to Arashiyama area.

We booked the Sagano Romantic Train. I manage to enjoy it about 20% of the time, the rest of it Sharif was screaming his little head off. 

The view was amazing. Can saw a few section where trees had fallen because of the typhoon though. 

We opted to return via the JR train so before headed back to the train station I found ourselves a little picnic spot beside the river. I had brought along peanut butter sandwiches and bought onigiris at Family Mart. The onigiris was more than enough for our lunch at the time. 

We stayed a while near the Kameoka Station also to eat some jagung and mushroom. 

I actually like walking around here. It felt like a glimpse of modern rural Japan.

The kids had some roasted milk tea ice creams. It was really good. 

I also have to say around Kyoto is the place where I can see desserts aplenty near the Arashiyama quaint little shops and ice cream places, I like going around looking into thing. I should have spent more time here. Never really like tight schedule of dashing from one place to another. If you like to buy some souvenirs, I would say bought some here, the things are cute and not as expensive compare to others.

Also found that my fondest memory of Japan is walking around the streets or just hanging out at the Kameoka stations, never really the attractions. LOL.

Anyway we manage to follow the hordes of people into the bamboo path forest. It is indeed a magnificent view. Avoid 10 am I should say, around 2 pm ish the crowd had thinned a bit so it was nicer to walk around in the afternoon than join the morning madness rush.

We also decided to go into the Tenryuji Temple for the garden visit. It was a very lovely traditional garden. Incredibly pretty. We just stood there for a while marveling at the prettiness of it.

We headed back towards Kyoto and decided to visit Nijo Castle. I had heard Nijo Castle was worth a visit and it was. The history and the architecture of the place was very informative. There is a well defined path which will explain the history and meaning of the room and artworks as we walk. The museum castle have an almost ethereal charm to it. 

The main garden sadly was closed due to the typhoon, so we missed out on those, but I don't think so we had time to browse around the garden as it was near closing hour too. 

We did walked around the castle area and climbed up the fort viewing tower to get a picture of the castle ground but mostly got only foliage. LOL.

The last day in Kyoto, I want to see Gion because, Kyoto is Gion to me.

It rained the whole day. It was drizzling lightly with a few hours of heavy rain where we took refuge in a yakiniku place to eat. I had already anticipated some rain during our trip and bought raincoats for the kid dari Malaysia lagi and my husband and I borrowed an umbrella each from the hotel. It is easier for them roaming around in raincoats rather than umbrella.

I couldn't remember the exact place but this area have a lot of really old teahouses and there were few brides in wedding attires busy taking pictures near the road.

It was a pleasant stroll around the area made even more romantic in the rain because there were not a lot of people around.

We then walked around in Nishiki Market because I want to try some street food. Oh, near the area we also bought the nicest tea. It is a good place for souvenirs buying and also just buying stuff for oneself. Mostly affordable tea can be found there and the store that I bought very nicely gave me to try out a whole lot of different teas in a cup to taste. Ended up with a caramel tea and matcha to brought home.

Anyway Nishiki market was crowded because it was raining I think. After lunchtime it thinned out a bit so after that we can see what it have to offer. More about it at the end. 

So the temple I was most excited to see is the Kiyomizu Deru temple. It is also the furthest we walked and most tiring since the temple is located on top of a hill near a busy road. I think they have another path to go up, but I didn't have time to look for it. 

Kiyomizu Deru as first entered. 

Because of the uphill trekked, my husband doesn't feel like he wants to go in, I went in with only Aziz.

Aziz was a lot of fun to travel with actually. He mostly game for anything and he does not tire easily even after walking non stop the whole day which not a lot of people can keep up with. 

You can see almost all of Kyoto town from here and there is Kyoto Tower. Really. It was a not a sight to be missed. Unfortch there were some restoration work at the verandah in the main hall which is the main attraction here. We can access some of it but it was really not the same 😢.

Belanja selfie with Sarip who slept most of the way up. 

We stayed up there for a short while before heading back down again. There is a different more nicer green path going down . It was a good walk. When walking down chanced upon my husband and Saif at the Otowa waterfall.

So of course Aziz also wanted to try, 

It was getting dark so we headed down which of course makes the time I want to browse around here to non existent because the shops is closing down. And I would feel bad if I were to come in and they were preparing to close. We were in awe at the age of some of the shops here. Some are way older than the Malaccan era. 

The walk down was picturesque. It got cold though so we hurried back. 

At the last min, since we felt that we had time and after dinner we decided to went up Kyoto Tower. The boys were mostly pysched to go up.

A grainy-ish pic of Kyoto Tower taken from Kyoto Station. 

Not much pic taken here because it was dark and just had fun viewing Kyoto. Did manage to see the blue light at Kiyomizu . The lenses are amazing though. You can almost see the inside of people houses if the curtains are not drawn 😮.

I think it was almost 10pm that we reached the hotel and gladly rested while doing laundry and putting our shoes inside the bathroom to be dried. 

Also during the first day it amused me when I put on my fitness watch and saw that I had walked 20k steps! I think throughout the whole trip we averaged around 20k steps, except during the typhoon day in Osaka.

Things We Ate

Aside from the little snack like nenas and ice cream mentioned, this time when I visited Japan (compared to the last time when I was pregnant and pukey) I wanted to eat a lot of stuffs which I think I can eat. 

So that is why a trip to Nishiki Market which have quite a lot of desserts and grilled sea food filled me with excitement. 

The first thing I tried out is those green tea mochi-like dessert, after seeing a lot of people queuing and remembering some Have Halal posted similar stuff about it and decided to try it.

 It was a peculiar taste at first when popped into mouth because the green tea powder pahit taste tu, once you get used to the taste of the green tea powder, it got really good. Not something the kids or my husband would enjoy I think.

Then we bought the famous soy donut. Suitable for vegetarian and used soy which you can taste but still subtle. They have donuts with various topping but I think my husband chose glazed with caramel or the likes and then I bought of the original one without toppings for snacking.

Even in the middle of a cold rainy day , the kids still want ice cream. It was soy ice cream and tasted pretty great, Aziz one comes with strawberries.

I would have liked to eat more, but I feel huhu very the mahal ( bile convert) and my husband was not so interested i, I punye interest jadi waned. Still I bought grilled scallops and octopus. Sigh. Now I want baby octopus.

It was good. Tapi kalau ader sos Lingam macam lagi ngam. 

My husband was more interested in ramen. I felt like we had gone to another ramen place but maybe the same shop but different place. Ayam Ya franchises which sells halal ramen.

There were a few Ayam Ya shops spread around Kyoto so I think we went twice to one shop and the last night to another near Kyoto Station. It was pretty good ramen. Highly recommended and they have utensils for kids and some shops (near the Kyoto Station) also have prayer room.

I think this is extra soy sauce ramen ( or deep soy), but this one is the best for me. Seriously good stuffs!

The kids really love their ramen. Syok la dapat makan megi kan. 

Also soy sauce ramen, and the other is spicy ramen which is OK ( not so spicy to our tastebud anyway) but I still prefer the soy sauce one. 

Also we tried out the Gion Naritaya Yakiniku place which can be quite expensive depending on what you order la. But it was a good dining experience. Everything was delicious which maybe because it was raining and we were famished and the smells of grilled meats is enough to tempt anybody. We wiped out everything. 

Not sure I would be recommending the place though, as I feel the staff is a bit stand-offish. But I was sick of ramen anyway, so glad to have options. 

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Sedap tapi penat. Tapi sedap.

A post shared by Dila Dils (@witherthorne) on Sep 28, 2018 at 9:15pm PDT

Of my Kyoto experience....

I would say I love Kyoto, I feel like 3 days barely cover what I wanna see here. There is more I wanna see in Kyoto. Hills to hike on, choppy river to go through, quaint shops on olden streets to look into, zen gardens to sit on, more mochi and biscuits and green tea to sample. Everything I experienced in Kyoto , I want more.

I love Kyoto.